“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

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Saturday, 25 July 2015

Review of 'Currents' by Tame Impala

Aussie psychedelic rock band, Tame Impala, have traded in rugged
guitars for shiny synths. The result is a sound somewhere between the Blade
Runner soundtrack and those glossy eighties power ballads that I could always
picture myself driving down a highway to at night if I could afford a car and
hadn’t failed my test five times, but anyway we’re getting sidetracked.

Currents doesn't try to sound very current. It's synth textures sound like something Rick Wakeman might have played with. Digital
effects bring it into the 21st Century – lashings of phasering and
jarring looping like a scratched record as found on the epic opener, ‘Let it
Happen’. Lead vocalist Kevin Parker meanwhile delivers high register singing
over the top, swamped in spacey reverb and sighed out with an almost longing
regret.

This vocal tone does lead some of the tracks to feel a bit
samey, but Kevin Parker’s charming lyrics help to spice things up. ‘Cause I’m a
Man’ is an ode to using one’s biology as an excuse for mistakes, that some silly
folk are calling sexist (to which Kevin Parker has responded to in this interview). Others such as ‘Past Life’ take the otherwordly idea of meeting a
lover from a past life.

Lyrically and sonically, the whole album seems to dwell
dreamily and wishfully on the past. There’s an almost – dare I say it – ‘vaporwave’
aesthetic to the whole record. But unlike vaporwave, these are actual
well-structured and original songs. The rock element is certainly gone, which
may put some people off; most of these tracks are indisputably pop. However,
there are still some progressive numbers here such as ‘Let it Happen’ that show
Tame Impala haven’t gone all simple and dumbed-down.